Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday April 21, 2014 @09:15AM
from the turn-off-the-lights dept.

schwit1 (797399) writes "An electromagnetic pulse is a burst of electromagnetic energy strong enough to disable, and even destroy, nearby electronic devices. In the first few minutes of an EMP, nearly half a million people would die. That's the worst-case scenario that author William R. Forstchen estimated would be the result of an EMP on the electric grid. 'If you do a smart plan — the Congressional EMP Commission estimated that you could protect the whole country for about $2 billion,' Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, told Watchdog.org. 'That's what we give away in foreign aid to Pakistan every year.' He said the more officials plan, the lower the estimated cost gets. 'The problem is not the technology,' Pry said. 'We know how to protect against it. It's not the money, it doesn't cost that much. The problem is the politics. It always seems to be the politics that gets in the way.'"

Click link in article to watchdog.org: not much more detail, more zomg fear crap, still no mention of obamacare.

Read comments on watchdog.org: ok, I’m out

Not saying there isn’t something to talk about here, but linking to fox news for this kind of topic is like linking to a local news report on heartbleed. We aren’t the audience for this level of reporting.

Mod this AC up. WTF/.?????? Some article about devastating effects of EMP and an easy preventative measure (that I wanted to read about). But the links are to foxnews.com and watchdog.org!!!! There is no content!

Would people stop using/. and start using soylentnews.org, please!?!? I can't take this anymore!

Mod this AC up. WTF/.?????? Some article about devastating effects of EMP and an easy preventative measure (that I wanted to read about). But the links are to foxnews.com and watchdog.org!!!! There is no content!

Would people stop using/. and start using soylentnews.org, please!?!? I can't take this anymore!

The watchdog.org site has links to the actual paper referenced (the link in the text called estimated).

We're not ready for a massive EMP... or a 500 mile high Tsunami... or Giant radioactive lizards that breath fire. I love the quote though, "In the first few minutes of an EMP, nearly half a million people would die." Well, if we're talking about an EMP that could take out the entire US including airspace, that might be true of planes falling from the sky and trains running off the rails. But that scenario isn't even remotely plausible outside total nuclear annihilation. Further, Hurrican Katrina showed that even an EMP hitting a major city is really nothing more than a power outage. Flooding happens to be the most dangerous natural disaster in reach of major cities (short of Hawaii blowing up or California splitting in half). Unless the results of an EMP are dams breaking in some Superman: The Movie kind of way, we wouldn't even see a Katrina level disaster.

Frankly, I could care less about an EMP. Any number of computer viruses could disable more machines than an EMP. And a radioactive dirty bomb is a real threat to life for decades. Any terrorist that could cause an explosion capable of triggering a sufficiently large EMP would find that the bomb itself would be more useful against a soft civilian target. An EMP is just flat out impractical for a terrorist, who prefers simple and direct and terrifying.

On the other hand, if we're worried about a bad actor like North Korea, I believe such an EMP that could hit multiple US cities at once would trigger a nuclear response from the US. What are we going to do, waste resources wrapping electronics in shielding for... an unwarranted fear? And $2 Billion sounds desperately low. It's like the TSA, only even more incredibly useless.

We're not ready for a massive EMP... or a 500 mile high Tsunami... or Giant radioactive lizards that breath fire.

Unlike the other two, an EMP event that could damage or destroy most electronic equipment within 1,000 mils of it can be created by most any nuclear power on the planet. A growing number of those nuclear powers are either unstable, hostile, or both, towards the US and the West. Iran is probably next on the list to have that capability.

that scenario isn't even remotely plausible outside total nuclear annihilation.

You've just stated you completely fail to understand the nature of EMP. The most dangerous EMP event is a large nuclear warhead exploded high above the ground, too high to

You've just stated you completely fail to understand the nature of EMP. The most dangerous EMP event is a large nuclear warhead exploded high above the ground, too high to do any meaningful damage on the ground. The damage is caused by the electromagnetic radiation released from the blast as EMP. It only takes one explosion. That isn't a nuclear Armageddon. It is returning a major post-industrial computer based society to a horse and wagon based economy in seconds, without having the horses and wagons to do

tests have been done; ECUs did fail and required a reset (disconnecting from the battery) before the car was driveable again.

http://www.futurescience.com/emp/vehicles.html

We tested a sample of 37 cars in an EMP simulation laboratory, with automobile vintages ranging from 1986 through 2002. Automobiles of these vintages include extensive electronics and represent a significant fraction of automobiles on the road today. The testing was conducted by exposing running and nonrunning automobiles to sequentially increasing EMP field intensities. If anomalous response (either temporary or permanent) was observed, the testing of that particular automobile was stopped. If no anomalous response was observed, the testing was continued up to the field intensity limits of the simulation capability (approximately 50 kV/m).
Automobiles were subjected to EMP environments under both engine turned off and engine turned on conditions. No effects were subsequently observed in those automobiles that were not turned on during EMP exposure. The most serious effect observed on running automobiles was that the motors in three cars stopped at field strengths of approximately 30 kV/m or above. In an actual EMP exposure, these vehicles would glide to a stop and require the driver to restart them. Electronics in the dashboard of one automobile were damaged and required repair. Other effects were relatively minor. . Twenty-five automobiles exhibited malfunctions that could be considered only a nuisance (e.g., blinking dashboard lights) and did not require driver intervention to correct. Eight of the 37 cars tested did not exhibit any anomalous response.
Based on these test results, we expect few automobile effects at EMP field levels below 25 kV/m. Approximately 10 percent or more of the automobiles exposed to higher field levels may experience serious EMP effects, including engine stall, that require driver intervention to correct. We further expect that at least two out of three automobiles on the road will manifest some nuisance response at these higher field levels. The serious malfunctions could trigger car crashes on U.S. highways; the nuisance malfunctions could exacerbate this condition. The ultimate result of automobile EMP exposure could be triggered crashes that damage many more vehicles than are damaged by the EMP, the consequent loss of life, and multiple injuries.

Simple people come to Slashdot for the community comments unfortunately the stories that are discussed have gone down hil., Soylent news hasn't been able to attract the/. community because the community isn't there even though the stories are generally better, it is a network effect problem its the same reason everyone has a Facebook account even though they hate it and acknowledge other sites like Google plus are superior but no one is there. What it will take to cause mass exodus is a massive sudden fuck

Except it was the post he responded to that suggested to stop using one in favor of the other. Yeah, he's on Slashdot, saying please stop using Slashdot. As opposed to the post you responded to, where he doesn't even suggest you can't go to one if you go to the other but instead asks why the guy who's telling us to stop using Slashdot is commenting here instead of there.

Click link in article to watchdog.org: not much more detail, more zomg fear crap, still no mention of obamacare.

Read comments on watchdog.org: ok, I’m out

Not saying there isn’t something to talk about here, but linking to fox news for this kind of topic is like linking to a local news report on heartbleed. We aren’t the audience for this level of reporting.

So you repeatedly looked for "Obamacare" information in a story about the dangers to infrastructure posed by EMP? (And that is modded "informative"?!?!) Yes, I'll agree with your assessment that you "...aren’t the audience for this level of reporting." You don't seem to be up to that level. On top of that your post isn't really anything other than an anti-Fox News troll.

There is plenty of fodder in those stories for good discussion by anyone that is interested. You apparently aren't.

Try not to bring facts to the conversation. This is about how truly evil Fox news is. He laid out the facts on how and why they are so evil so you just need to shut up and get your news from real orgs like Al Jezeera America.

I would presume parent is making jest of the excessively biased Fox News and the somewhat biased Watchdog News. Usually they try to at least work in a halfhearted jab against Obama. I too was waiting for the "and here is why Obama is to blame" punchline as soon as I saw the source of the article.

Anyway, I agree with other posters. This article is aimed at stirring up fear within their demographic, not technical discussion. If you drill down far enough there is a much better article that probably should have been directly linked.

Because, you know: If somebody could produce a massive EMP blackout in the US, he could just as well nuke Los Angeles. So it's best to spend trillions of dollars on nuclear shelters now. And constructing a doomsday world destruction device might also be a good idea, because this would act as a deterrent against the terrorists...

FUD? I didn't even know we had a Congressional EMP Commission.
I feel much better now. I think we should all vote to re-elect all our congressmen so they can continue their great work.
What do the rest of you dumbasses think?
Wait for the next election, to get the punchline.

Wost case scenario: when a black out occurs in NYC, 8 million people will die within the first day.

It is worst case, not probable, not something that is going to happen, not something that probably will happen, so such numbers are FUD and really are not part of the debate.

It is true that 30 years ago electronics were not so embedded in our lives. In particular the new generation does not seem to be able to solve problems for themselves. I see them on the phone having their parents solve even the most ba

Agreed. Has it 10 years already? This article (and attendant requests for funding) seems to come out around every 10 years. This is, at least, the third time I have seen the EMP "bogey-man" series of articles. And I have worked with the US Army, who do take EMP (and HEMP) threats very seriously. And are already funded accordingly.

I like the statement that, in the worst case scenario, 500,000 people would die in the first half hour.

That amazes me. I would think that even in 2014, it would take a couple of hours before people went into a terminal heart rhythm because they couldn't log on to Facebook. Maybe I'm just old and slow...

Even the tinfoil-hatters I know were not predicting that many deaths in the first hour. In 3-4 days, this would be a different story because people would be re-enacting the Donner party in heavily populated areas once food trucks stopped coming... but in the first half-hour, there might be casualties like people in elevators, or a welding robot shutting down and dropping something heavy on a worker's noggin, but not these many in such short a time.

And why would trucks stop coming into the city?Oh, right becasue idiots think an EMP would stop most vehicles from running.Next time you tin foil hat friends mention it, be sure to inform them that only 3% would ahve any effect at all, and only a smalle number of those would lead to a situation where a crash could occur.

So, basically, we would be in 1910 for about a month, then 1920, within a year everyone would have power again.

Would people die? yes/ Would civilization collapse? no. The internet would be running at some capacity through the whole thing.

The biggest risk is that all these ignorant survivalist cause people to panic becasue of all the FUD that have been spreading.

Because of metal shielding and short wires, basic electronics 101 stuff here.

The EMP power required to take out a modern car's Ignition system and ECM would be so high that you would DIE from the radiation. Cars also are the single most noisy power environment so the ECM is already hardened from the 2000 mini EMPs per minute that are being created under the hood of the car as it drives down the road.

I have directly experienced an EMP that is 90,000 times greater than anything the SUN can create, it's called a direct lightning strike. several electronic systems were blown out like TV sets that were connected to an ANTENNA. but the car in the garage that was the closest to the EMP was just fine. Same with the motorcycle and the other car in the driveway. How close was the EMP? 8 feet from the garage, it split the tree in 1/2 and burned a track down the center of it.

But that is first hand experience, if you have any kind of electronics education you will also know that even a Nuclear bomb generated EMP will only affect systems that are interconnected by miles of wire. so yes, all the power grids will go down as well as all the telecommunications systems that are still wire based. There is a lot of bullshit floating around the internet about the EMP and how it is a super uber technology killer. it's not. and even if there was a chance of a really big one, it's trivial to protect equipment from them.

For lack of available fuel? For lack of refrigeration in the warehouses that used to store the food they deliver? For lack of whole chunks of the supply chain upstream from their knife's-edge just-in-time delivery infrastructure? Because roads would be blocked or at least hosed up for lack of traffic control? Because people would be truck-jacking anything that looked valuable?

The entire infrastructure that brings food to people right before they actually need it is incredibly fragile. The trucks, needin

Do you realize what careful is? For example when living in earthquake country believing that three days of supplies as recommended by the government is optimistic. So you buy three cases (adjust for family size) of bottled water rather than one, and as you use one case through normal activity you replace it so you always have 2-3 on hand. For your cupboard you purchase six cans (adjust for family size) of a particular canned good you use, when you get down to three you purchase three more, that way you always have 3-6 on hand. Do so each for canned chile, soup, peaches... whatever you normally use. Similar story with dry goods, 1-2 boxes on hand, snack foods, etc. 1-2 packages of toilet paper. 1-2 boxes of plastic garbage bags on hand, toilet liners if water is out. 1-2 packages of batteries for some LED flashlights. A basic first aid kit with antiseptic, gauzes, tape, bandaids, aspirin/tylenol, etc; no wilderness self-surgery kit necessary. If a disaster occurs eat what is in your refrigerator first, then your freezer, then your canned goods. You can have a week or two of food just by not letting your cupboard go bare. Nothing special or exotic needed, no freeze dried food good for years necessary. No special gear beyond what a boy scout might take on a weekend camping trip is necessary.

Pretty much all you need is the stuff you normally buy and use anyway. You just don't let inventories get to zero.

Fundamentally I agree with you about the imbecilic quality of the fear for, and utter lack of real knowledge about, the boogeyman, EMP.

But there are also real dangers on account of the hair's edge on which is balanced the life support system of the civilized world. If the North American electric power grid were to go down for more than a day, dislocation starts. More than a handful of days, the machine stops. The ENTIRE machine. I'll tell you why trucks stop co

I ran a post apocalyptic RPG (CP2020 system) once where civilisation was destroyed by a network of satellites called "dark stars", these were basically stocked up with several score dedicated EMP devices which would be released at intervals determined by a complicated biblical code. The group had to find a way to take down the satellites, or at lest some of them, before the next pulse reset civilisation to near zero, which involved cracking the code (ie beating up a bunch of zealots plus sleuthery and resea

Yes, the article is sensationalist. While EMP could be a real problem, a bigger problem is that any attack that could generate a big enough EMP to knock out the electronics over half a continent would likely cause much worse problems, like World War III and Nuclear Winter. Even if it only costs a little bit, is it worth the effort to guard against EMP? Computer security is another area that you have to constantly ask if it's worth the trouble, and will proposed measures actually help? Yes, we've had man

i guess the assumption is that it's half a million people on critical life support, or otherwise relying on some contraption to keep them alive. It's certainly exaggerated, but i could see an emp crashing planes. Sure, it's not going to cause the wings to stop providing lift, but I'm pretty sure airliners have no mechanical connection between the input and the control surfaces.

I guess it could cause your car to shut down. it might start back up again, but i don't have faith in my fellow motorists abilit

It takes more than 4 days for someone to be willing to resort to cannibalism. Canned food, frozen food, etc will be plentiful enough. And plenty of Americans have enough fat stores that they could subsist on water for a while. Priority #1 when a big disaster strikes: immediately fill every bathtub, sink, and then containers with cold water. Shut off intake into your water heater. Do this before water pressure drops and/or the water gets poopy. Don't use the toilets for elimination of body waste. Do y

Of course, a solar EMP isn't likely to be big enough in localized intensity to do any damage to small things like aircraft.... but it could still damage the electric grid on the ground, which has wiring that is many miles in length and so exceptionally large voltages can be induced by such an event.

Anybody requiring electronic medical devices to survive would be in danger, pacemakers (1 million Americans), insulin pumps (20 thousand Americans), dialysis machines (500 thousand Americans), respirators,... then there is medication that requires refrigeration. Commercial airplanes are built to withstand lighting strikes so they would probably survive the control tower's comms and tracking equipment may not work so there is an increased risk of crashes.

Don't forget the people living on a... um... "government income", who suddenly won't be able to watch Jerry Springer or Dr. Oz or other fine examples of daytime television programming. Once their big-screen TV set shuts down, you know the first thing they're going to do is grab a large kitchen knife and go on a rampage killing everyone in the neighborhood.

I like the statement that, in the worst case scenario, 500,000 people would die in the first half hour.

That amazes me. I would think that even in 2014, it would take a couple of hours before people went into a terminal heart rhythm because they couldn't log on to Facebook. Maybe I'm just old and slow...

From the actual report being reported on, almost all commercial airlines are computer controlled an an EMP would kill those computers and the flight controls. Anybody in the air wouldn't be for long.

The degeneration of society seems to be pretty plausible. Kind of ties in with the "post-apocalyptic skills" thread of a few weeks ago.

I hope people take the time to read EMP commission report. While there is no question it would suck and hard to predict aggregate effect on society there are some interesting and counter-intuitive tidbits. Some of my favorites:

Systems designed to protect against EMF also protect against EMP. When tested new cars were no worse off than old cars due to EMF tolerance requirements. I believe none of the cars tested actually broke down although some had to be turned off and started right back up.

Sorry, what you plan for as most probable is not enough. That gives you, to pick one example, a Maginot line. They will just go around it or fly over it.

More apropos recent history, having a military system which is devastatingly effective against mass tank attacks and tanks dug in defensively, but is absolutely helpless against IEDs and snipers, is not effective. But neither is the opposite. You either make your military system flexible and effective against as wide a variety of strategies and tactics as p

Nuclear detonation? We'd have worse things to worry about then (like ionizing radiation killing us all). Solar flare activity? How the hell would you even protect the entire planet from something that powerful in the first place? Don't we have more immediate things to worry about than something as unlikely as this?

"Nuclear detonation? We'd have worse things to worry about then (like ionizing radiation killing us all)."no everyone. Air burst can be high altitude. so to minimize fallout, allow for landing, temporarily cripple and not destroy cities you want to occupy.While tat would be local, the way the current grid is set up, a local even could take out have the nations power.

"How the hell would you even protect the entire planet from something that powerful in the first place?"A) It wold depend on the size the is a

A solar generated EMP is not a threat to your house wiring. It is only a threat to wiring that is many miles long - i.e. the commercial power grid. It will induce large currents in the grid, that will travel to your house as (I assume) your house is connected to the grid. As disconnecting your house from the grid is (I assume) not a valid solution, the answer must be protecting the grid.

Somehow I have the feeling that if a nuke detonates, that is powerful enough to produce an EMP that causes a blackout in the entire USA, the EMP will be low on the list of things to worry about. That is, assuming you survive the initial blast long enough to even realise there is a nation-wide blackout.

"The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands"

Somehow I have the feeling that if a nuke detonates, that is powerful enough to produce an EMP that causes a blackout in the entire USA, the EMP will be low on the list of things to worry about. That is, assuming you survive the initial blast long enough to even realise there is a nation-wide blackout.

A ground-based/low altitude nuke will kill you, but not cause an EMP pulse. A very high altitude nuke will cause an EMP, and not give any radiation to the ground. While they're both fruit, it's apples and oranges.

In Forstchen's book (and according to what I've read) it would take a minimum of well placed 3 nukes in the upper atmosphere to cover the continental US- basically line of sight. I believe it doesn't take a particularly big nuke.

A Faraday cage may protect your devices, but only if the cage is complete- any wires in or out could defeat the purpose and propagate the high field strength (at least high enough to do damage) inside the cage. Since the risetime of the signal is very, very fast, even a tiny crack

No, not really. If you had an EMP that could cook via electromagnetic radiation the electrical grid of the US, you'd have worst problems than EMP caused black outs to deal with.

The whole idea of an effective EMP is to fry as much cooper/aluminum wire as one could. Think of really effective EMPs being more like lighting and less like nuclear detonations, since using a nuclear detonation is like trying to cut off the kitchen lights using a bulldozer and thirty tons of sand. If we're strictly talking EMP, l

The people who die in the first few minutes are going to be those who's lives are dependent on technology. That's list contains almost exclusively those in planes and those dependent on medical devices. How's a power grid update going to protect those people? Hospitals already have backup generators and you can't do anything about fried equipment.

Why do you think people on planes will have an issue? Planes are 'hardened' against non hostile EM event. such as lightening. They also have several redundant systems. The amount of redundancy depends on the criticality of the systemThe impact of an EMP would be minimal. At least on Boeing systems. I assume* Air Bus also used RTCA/DO-160D or it's equivalent.

Since there are several ignorant memes in the public conscious put there by ignorant fear monger survivalist, panic may be a real issue.Fact is, most pl

That's list contains almost exclusively those in planes and those dependent on medical devices.

Is there experimental evidence or other reasons for thinking planes would fall out of the sky or is this just an assumption? Our current fleets of flying aluminum cans routinely get hit by lightning and come out more or less unscathed. A direct localized strike has got to be competitive with high altitude nukes perhaps increased length of exposure from a gnarly CME could have a different/worse effect.

TFA is kinda small on any details, but what do you expect from Fox News. How exactly does 2 Billion "protect" everyone from an EMP weapon? Have we found something as good a what we currently use, but won't break? Old Vacuum tubes are a nice protection against a system that could go down, but you never want it to go down. You can't really use the good vacuum tubes ether so you're stuck in 1940's tech for a lot of stuff. How exactly does this 2 Billion stop the pace makers from breaking, the planes from falling, and every hospital patient from dying in those few initial hours. That money might help for long term protection by setting up a process to recover from such an event, but I don't really see anything that says it will protect us from the massive initial death toll.

How exactly does 2 Billion "protect" everyone from an EMP weapon? Have we found something as good a what we currently use, but won't break? Old Vacuum tubes are a nice protection against a system that could go down, but you never want it to go down.

You install shielding and protection components. A component you can't design to be resistant to an EMP, like maybe a CPU, you shield - stick it in a grounded metal box. You switch to fiber-optic for signal lines, and you put surge suppression/breakers on any metallic lines entering the shelter.

On things like generators, you can provide limited protection simply by over-specifying specific components. Wires/insulation rated to higher voltage, in addition to some breaker components to ensure that longer w

Isn't that much when you consider all of the nation's electric utilities. It'll be interesting to see how Congress spins this: As a requirement to be imposed upon each utility as a part of their normal maintenance and reliability obligations. Or as Impending Doom, requiring the immediate transfer of federal funds into the coffers of the nations' utilities. Including the investor-owned outfits.

I don't believe the 2Billion dollar amount for a second. 2 Billion seems like a very VERY large number. Now lets do some simple math. Divide that by 50 and that is 40million available for each state. You might be able to protect Wyoming for 40 Million, but I doubt you could protect Alaska (construction costs are too high) and I doubt you could even begin to protect a city like San Jose, New York, Dallas, or Chicago for 40 Million (not even to mention the rest of those states).
The other interesting thin

...whether Cold War-flavored (so very 1980s) or terrorist-flavored (so very 9/11), wouldn't these relatively straightforward precautions LIKEWISE buffer us against the effects of the sorts of solar activity that randomly seems to popup every 100 years or so?

It seems that as our society becomes more and more DEPENDENT on the interwebs, we'd want to invest a little to protect that.(Then again, one might assume that because our entire economy runs on the roadways, we'd want to invest in them too...)

Yet the Republicans are too wedded to utter prohibition on taxation, and the Democrats are too busy taking the tax revenues we do get and pouring great gobs of cash onto various interest groups for either of them give a shit about the ACTUAL public weal.

Does anyone know what the so-called "politics" are that get in the way of just going and doing it, or is this doublespeak for the idea that it's going to be hard and not particularly rewarding work that nobody ultimately really wants to do?

"Politics" in this case means that they haven't convinced the government that this money needs to be spent on them. Given that in these cases the government tends to have a bias towards spending money, I would regard that as telling.

Even ignoring the threat of so-called deaths, the damage caused by a massive EMP blackout will easily measure in the hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars for North America alone. The blackout on the east coast in 2003 alone created about $10b damage to the economy... scale that up to the entire continent.

No, "politics" means the criminal assholes in Congress and the White House have no problem wasting trillions of dollars on pet feel-good projects and perpetual programs of relentless ever-increasing scope, but pontificate and argue themselves blue in the face over a billion here and there for undertakings which are unquestionably vital to safeguard the life and welfare of EVERYBODY.

The reality is that a continent-wide power disruption, which could easily follow a solar-generated EMP if our infrastructure is not hardened against it, will do hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars of damage to the economy., The east coast blackout of 2003 alone did about $10b worth of economic damage.... scale that up to the entire continent.

This "civilian world" is sitting fat, dumb and happy watching reality TV shows about the people who are more ready than they are. Those "crazy preppers" who are trying to prepare for such things are probably going to see the zombie masses looking not for a pound of flesh, but for the food and supplies that they made fun of preppers for stockpiling.

I guess my grandma reads/. now. Since that seems to be the demographic you're targeting.

There was once a time that I got about 65% of my news from/.. I enjoyed the topics and the discussions were often as informative as the stories, sometimes more. This is just not the case anymore./. has degraded to just an old grocery store check out line rag. Very little actual content. Scare tactic headlines. You know the drill.

If NBCCBSABCCNN are busy abusing their "Breaking News" banners and fauning over Michelle Obama's dress, then the alternatives are where you're going to hear about this stuff. In fact, The Blaze and Drudge have been linking to this stuff for a long time because for the people who actually care about this stuff this isn't news.

The 1859 solar flare [wikipedia.org] resulted in anaurora visible at the equator. It damaged telegraph lines and lighning rods. If it happened today it would be expected to fry most power line transformers and cell phone towers. there are only 5% enough spare transformers at most. Plus industrial production could have come to a halt.

This extra radiation appears to have created extra C14 from atmospheric nitrogen) at that time. Scientist have exampled tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments for other such super storms. There is a hint of one in 774 AD [wordpress.com]. The historical records and istopes have not been studied enough to determine the recurrance of large storms.

So I read the book that guy wrote and while it was entertaining and probably accurate, it still came off as advocating giving billions to defense contractors for some unspecified fix. The forward by Newt Gingrich kinda tipped me off.

To prevent an EMP from causing the collapse of US civilization, you, at the least, need to protect:

- The power grid- Every municipal water and sewage system- The entire petroleum refining and distribution apparatus to a point where you can refine and distribute diesel fuel. (Can't run farm equipment or food transport without it)- Food distribution and processing- The public safety system (cars, computers, etc.)- A decent portion of the telecommunications grid- Acute medical care- Military weapons, logistic

Many antennas, each miles to hundreds of miles long, is hardly the same thing as a single antenna hundreds of thousands of miles long. You have 100,000 km of blood vessels great and tiny packed inside your body, but you don't drag around a train 100,000 km long when you move about.

The article of your first reference doesn't say there is "no way to protect"; it

Except that those individual things wouldn't be tend to be affected by a solar generated EMP... A solar generated EMP isn't like an EMP weapon, which may do a lot of damage to only a very localized region. A solar EMP is ultimately only a threat to wiring that is on the order of multiple miles in length, such as the electric power grid. They are a threat to individual devices and appliances only to the same extent that they may be connected to a grid which is itself vulnerable.